2021-04-30
Acts 23:1 NKJV
We know that God often speaks to us in a ‘still, small voice’ (1 Kings 19:12 NIV). Often, that voice comes to us via our conscience. God helps to direct our day-to-day life with tugs on our heart and passing thoughts. He can draw us towards His plan, and Himself, through our instincts. God is in the feelings that grow in our gut.
Paul understood the importance of paying attention to his conscience as a way to stay in tune with God. He wrote ‘I myself always strive to have a conscience without offence towards God and men’ (Acts 24:16 NKJV), and he was right when he acknowledged that it takes constant striving. It’s not always easy to hear past the noise of everything going on around us. Listening out for God’s voice speaking through our conscience takes practice. When we ignore those quiet thoughts, the tugging feeling in our heart that we know is right, we dull our senses a little more each time.
On the other hand, when we train ourselves to listen out for the small voice that we know is God’s, we’ll get better at recognising it. When our conscience is built up by God’s words and by knowing the Bible, we’ll start to want to do the right thing. We’ll start to recognise what God wants and expects of our more and more quickly.
Once we attune ourselves to hearing God’s voice in our own thoughts and feelings, our natural inclination will be to gladly live in accordance with His will every moment of our lives.
Num 11-13; Mark 5:31-43; Ps 2; Prov 10:30-32
2021-04-29
Ezra 10:4 NKJV
We all have things on our to-do list that seem overwhelming or difficult. We can also have times where even simple things seem overwhelming because of how we feel in the moment. In Ezra 9 and 10, we see Ezra praying and crying because Israel had broken some of God’s instructions at the time. He spends some time mourning the situation, before someone called Shekaniah tells him to get up and fix the situation.
This moment is a great reminder that, when the time comes, it’s our responsibility to do the same – rise up and fulfil the task at hand. It’s okay to have moments where we feel overwhelmed. Sometimes, our relationship with God involves ‘weeping and lying face down on the ground’ like we see in Ezra 10:1 (NLT).
God wants our honesty, and that means that He makes space for us to share our feelings with Him. But once that’s done, He calls us to dust ourselves off and carry on with our responsibility. This is made much easier with support. Doing the difficult thing, working through feeling overwhelmed, is much easier with good people behind us. Shekaniah’s instructions to Ezra in chapter 10:4 read: ‘Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it’. How precious and encouraging are the words ‘we will support you’?
When God gives us a responsibility, He equips us for it. So with the right kind of people around us, reminding us of the supernatural courage we’re given, we can rise up and get the job done.
Num 8-10; Mark 5:21-30; Ps 35; Prov 10:28-29
2021-04-28
Proverbs 11:24 NIV
Jesus taught His disciples to be distributors of His blessing and responders to those in need. He equipped them to represent Him on earth by involving them in the process of performing miracles. In the feeding of the five thousand, the miracle of multiplication didn’t happen when the food left Jesus’ hands, but when it left the disciples’ hands. Jesus blessed the five loaves and two fish, gave the food to the disciples, and they set out to do what seemed impossible: feeding a multitude with a boy’s packed lunch. But as they did it, they experienced the miraculous.
When the Lord’s blessing is on what we have, we’ll succeed in spite of the challenges and obstacles we’ll face. God has given each of us something that others need. But sometimes we fail to recognise it, or we doubt that it has any value. So we think, ‘I don’t have what it takes.’ The truth is, we do – but it’s in seed form. Jesus described it this way: ‘First the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head’ (Mark 4:28 NKJV).
God has placed something within each of us that He wants us to recognise, nurture, and use for His glory. When He blesses what we have, we’ll be amazed at the potential we’ve got. A miracle began when a boy found an unmet need and decided, ‘These people are hungry and need to be fed. I’m going to give what I have to help.’ That’s also when the disciples discovered what Jesus could do with what they had, even though it looked hopelessly inadequate. So let’s take what God’s blessed us with, and see what miracles He can work when we offer it back to Him to use for His kingdom.
Num 7; Mark 5:11-20; Ps 94:12-23; Prov 10:27
2021-04-27
James 1:25 NLT
Do you find it easy to memorise Bible verses, or to quote large chunks of Scripture off by heart? Many of us would find it difficult, so when we come across someone who seems to know the Bible down to every last comma, we’re often impressed and want that skill too.
But before we get too carried away, we need to remember that God doesn’t bless us for just reading His Word, or memorising it, or even being able to repeat it word for word in the original languages. God promises to bless those who put His Word into action. ‘Don’t just listen to God’s word…do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it’ (James 1:22-25 NLT).
When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, Satan proved that even he had learned the Scriptures off by heart, but Jesus defeated him by putting the Scriptures into practise (take a look at Matthew 4:1-11). The knowledge of God’s Word is vitally important to us, but knowing what the Bible says can only take us so far. It’s when we apply those Scriptures that real change and real blessing comes. So let’s resolve to be not just ‘hearers’, but also ‘doers’ of God’s Word.
Num 4:34-6:27; Mark 5:1-10; Ps 94:1-11; Prov 10:24-26
2021-04-26
Zechariah 14:21 KJV
Yesterday we thought about what ‘sin’ really means. Today, we’re thinking about ‘holiness’. In a similar vein to the word ‘sin’, the word ‘holy’ can become just another piece of Christian jargon. Both are words that we hear a lot in churches, and don’t often take time to properly define.
We see a flawed example of performing false holiness in the Pharisees throughout the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They make a song and dance about their own piety, without much to show of a genuine love of God. In Matthew 23:33, we see Jesus say to them: ‘You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?’ (NIV). God is not impressed when we pretend to be holy by making a show of following rules and regulations. Holiness must mean something other than being religious.
Most often in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word used for holiness is godesh, which can be translated to mean ‘apartness’, ‘separateness’, or ‘sacredness’. By His very nature, God is separate from the world, and therefore our model of true holiness. John 4:24 tells us that ‘God is Spirit’ (NIV), which sets Him apart from earthly things, and makes Him sacred.
Thankfully, Jesus bridges this separation, and through the Holy Spirit, we can share in God’s holiness. We become ‘sacred’ too, something clothed in Spirit and different from the rest of this world. We are set apart to carry His presence here. This doesn’t mean that we should be isolated from everything around us, but that we should be noticeably set apart for God’s purposes.
That is what’s meant by being in the world, but not of it. We can’t make any differences without getting involved in the earthly community around us, but we have to stay holy through our ongoing relationship with God.
Num 3:1-4:33; Mark 4:26-41; Ps 144:9-15; Prov 10:22-23
2021-04-25
Psalm 51:4 NKJV
To a lot of us, the idea of sin can become quite old-fashioned and abstract. Sometimes, we avoid thinking about it all. When we do think about it, we can fall into either assuming that everything we do is sin, or that it’s only extreme actions that count. The truth is hidden somewhere among all of that.
What we call sin is simply anything that we could allow to negatively affect our relationships with God, with others, and with ourselves. It’s anything that we could allow to get in the way of what God wants for us. Whether it’s something that we think, something that we do, or something that we neglect to do, we can understand sin as anything that blocks the pipes between us and the Holy Spirit.
As Psalm 51:4 tells us, all of our sin is against God only. It becomes a problem, not because God has a list of rules and is desperate to punish us (that’s not who He is!), but because they get in the way of our connection to Him. He loves us and wants a relationship with us more than anything.
There is good news in that. If everything negative that we do counts only against God, He is the one who can clear the connection by forgiving us. Read Isaiah 6, particularly verse 7. It’s a great illustration of how ready God is to restore our relationship with us, and how completely He’ll do so. The minute that you turn to Him and tell Him that you want to live alongside Him, ‘your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged’ (NKJV).
No matter what ‘sin’ we have in our lives, God is ready to deal with it and, from there, will help us become more like Him every day.
2 Ki 6:1-7; Matt 14:22-33
